<h2>Name</h2>
<p>
The Surah takes its name Ar-Rum from the second verse in which the
words <em>ghulibat-ir-Rum</em> have occurred. 
</p>
<h2>Period of Revelation</h2>
<p>
The period
of the revelation of this Surah is determined absolutely by the
historical event that has been mentioned at the outset. It says: "The
Romans have been vanquished in the neighboring land."In those days
the Byzantine occupied territories adjacent to Arabia were Jordan,
Syria and Palestine, and in these territories the Romans were
completely overpowered by the Iranians in 615 A. D. Therefore, it can
be said with absolute certainty that this Surah was sent down in the
same year, and this was the year in which the migration to Habash took
place.
</p>
<h2>Historical Background</h2>
<p>
The prediction made in the initial verses of this Surah is one of the
most outstanding evidences of the Quran's being the Word of Allah and
the Holy Prophet Muhammad's being a true Messenger of Allah. Let us
have a look at the historical background relevant to the verses. 
</p>
<p>
Eight
years before the Holy Prophet's advent as a Prophet the Byzantine
Emperor Maurice was overthrown by Phocus, who captured the throne and
became king. Phocus first got the Emperor's five sons executed in
front of him, and then got the Emperor also killed and hung their
heads in a thoroughfare in Constantinople. A few days after this he
had the empress and her three daughters also put to death. The event
provided Khusrau Parvez, the Sassanid king of Iran; a good moral
excuse to attack Byzantium. For Emperor Maurice had been his
benefactor; with his help he had got the throne of Iran. Therefore, he
declared that he would avenge his godfather's and his children's
murder upon Phocus, the usurper. So, he started war against Byzantium
in 603 A. D. and within a few years, putting the Phocus armies to rout
in succession, he reached Edessa (modern, Urfa) in Asia Minor, on the
one hand, and Aleppo and Antioch in Syria, on the other. When the
Byzantine ministers saw that Phocus could not save the country, they
sought the African governor's help, who sent his son, Heraclius, to
Constantinople with a strong fleet. Phocus was immediately deposed and
Heraclius made emperor. He treated Phocus as he had treated Maurice.
This happened in 610 A. D., the year the Holy Prophet was appointed to
Prophethood. 
</p>
<p>
The moral excuse for which Khusrau Parvez had started the
war was no more valid after the deposition and death of Phocus. Had
the object of his war really been to avenge the murder of his ally on
Phocus for his cruelty, he would have come to terms with the new
Emperor after the death of Phocus. But he continued the war, and gave
it the color of a crusade between Zoroastrianism and Christianity.
The sympathies of the Christian sects (i. e. Nestorians and Jacobians,
etc.) which had been excommunicated by the Roman ecclesiastical
authority and tyrannized for years also went with the Magian
(Zoroastrian) invaders, and the Jews also joined hands with them; so
much so that the number of the Jews who enlisted in Khusrau's army
rose up to 26,000. 
</p>
<p>
Heraclius could not stop this storm. The very first
news that he received from the East after ascending the throne was
that of the Iranian occupation of Antioch. After this Damascus fell in
613 A. D. Then in 614 A.D. the Iranians occupying Jerusalem played
havoc with the Christian world. Ninety thousand Christians were
massacred and the Holy Sepulcher was desecrated. The Original Cross on
which, according to the Christian belief, Jesus had died was seized
and carried to Mada'in. The chief priest Zacharia was taken prisoner
and all the important churches of the city were destroyed. How puffed
up was Khusrau Parvez at this victory can be judged from the letter
that he wrote to Heraclius from Jerusalem. He wrote: "From Khusrau,
the greatest of all gods, the master of the whole world : To Heraclius,
his most wretched and most stupid servant: 'You say that you have
trust in your Lord. why didn't then your Lord save Jerusalem from
me?'" 
</p>
<p>
Within a year after this victory the Iranian armies over-ran
Jordan, Palestine and the whole of the Sinai Peninsula, and reached
the frontiers of Egypt. In those very days another conflict of a far
greater historical consequence was going on in Makkah. The believers
in One God, under the leadership of the Prophet Muhammad (may Allah's
peace be upon him), were fighting for their existence against the
followers of <em>shirk</em> under the command of the chiefs of the Quraish, and
the conflict had reached such a stage that in 615 A. D., a substantial
number of the Muslims had to leave their homes and take refuge with
the Christian kingdom of Habash, which was an ally of the Byzantine
Empire. In those days the Sassanid victories against Byzantium were
the talk of the town, and the pagans of Makkah were delighted and were
taunting the Muslims to the effect: "Look the fire worshipers of Iran
are winning victories and the Christian believers in Revelation and
Prophethood are being routed everywhere. Likewise, we, the idol
worshipers of Arabia, will exterminate you and your religion." 
</p>
<p>
These
were the conditions when this Surah of the Quran was sent down, and in
it a prediction was made, saying:"The Romans have been vanquished in
the neighboring land and within a few years after their defeat, they
shall be victorious. And it will be the day when the believers will
rejoice in the victory granted by Allah." It contained not one but two
predictions: First, the Romans shall be Victorious; and second, the
Muslims also shall win a victory at the same time. Apparently, there
was not a remote chance of the fulfillment of the either prediction in
the next few years. On the one hand, there were a handful of the
Muslims, who were being beaten and tortured in Makkah, and even till
eight years after this prediction there appeared no chance of their
victory and domination. On the other, the Romans were losing more and
more ground every next day. By 619 A. D. the whole of Egypt had passed
into Sassanid hands and the Magian armies had reached as far as
Tripoli. In Asia Minor they beat and pushed back the Romans to
Bosporus, and in 617 A. D. they captured Chalcedon (modern, Kadikoy)
just opposite Constantinople. The Emperor sent an envoy to Khusrau,
praying that he was ready to have peace on any terms, but he replied,
"I shall not give protection to the emperor until he is brought in
chains before me and gives up obedience to his crucified god and
adopts submission to the fire god." At last, the Emperor became so
depressed by defeat that he decided to leave Constantinople and shift
to Carthage (modern, Tunis). In short, as the British historian Gibbon
says, even seven to eight years after this prediction of the Quran,
the conditions were such that no one could even imagine that the
Byzantine Empire would ever gain an upper hand over Iran. Not to speak
of gaining domination, no one could hope that the Empire, under the
circumstances, would even survive. 
</p>
<p.
When these verses of the Quran were
sent down, the disbelievers of Makkah made great fun of them, and
Ubayy bin Khalaf bet Hadrat Abu Bakr ten camels if the Romans became
victorious within three years. When the Holy Prophet came to know of
the bet, he said, "The Quran has used the words <em>bid`i sinin</em>, and the
word <em>bid`</em> in Arabic applies to a number upto ten. Therefore, make the
bet for ten years and increase the number of camels to a hundred." So,
Hadrat Abu Bakr spoke to Ubayy again and bet a hundred camels for ten
years. 
</p>
<p>
In 622 A. D. as the Holy Prophet migrated to Madinah, the
Emperor Heraclius set off quietly for Trabzon from Constantinople via
the Black Sea and started preparations to attack Iran from rear. For
this he asked the Church for money, and Pope Sergius lent him the
Church collections on interest, in a bid to save Christianity from
Zoroastrianism. Heraclius started his counter attack in 623 A. D. from
Armenia. Next year, in 624 A. D., he entered Azerbaijan and destroyed
Clorumia, the birthplace of Zoroaster, and ravaged the principal fire
temple of Iran. Great are the powers of Allah, this was the very year
when the Muslims achieved a decisive victory at Badr for the first time
against the <em>mushriks</em>. Thus both the predictions made in Surah Rum were
fulfilled simultaneously within the stipulated period of ten years.
</p>
<p>
The Byzantine forces continued to press the Iranians hard and in the
decisive battle at Nineveh (627 A.D.) they dealt them the hardest blow.
They captured the royal residence of Dastagerd, and then pressing
forward reached right opposite to Ctesiphon, capital of Iran in those
days. In 628 A. D. in an internal revolt, Khusrau Parvez was
imprisoned and 18 of his sons were executed in front of him and a few
days later he himself died in the prison. This was the year when the
peace treaty of Hudaibiya was concluded, which the Quran has termed as
"the supreme victory", and in this very year Khusrau's son, Qubad II,
gave up all the occupied Roman territories, restored the True Cross
and made peace with Byzantium. In 628 A. D., the Emperor himself went
to Jerusalem to install the "Holy Cross" in its place, and in the same
year the Holy Prophet entered Makkah for the first time after the
Hijrah to perform the <em>`Umra-tul-Qada'</em>. 
</p>
<p>
After this no one could have any
doubt about the truth of the prophecy of the Quran, with the result
that most of the Arab polytheists accepted Islam. The heirs of Ubayy
bin Khalaf lost their bet and had to give a hundred camels to Hadrat
Abu Bakr Siddiq. He took them before the Holy Prophet, who ordered that
they be given away in charity, because the bet had been made at a time
when gambling had not yet been forbidden by the <em>Shari`ah</em>; now it was
forbidden. Therefore, the bet was allowed to be accepted from the
belligerent disbelievers, but instruction given that it should be
given away in charity and should not be brought in personal use.
</p>
<h2>Theme and Subject matter</h2>
<p>
The discourse begins with the theme that the Romans
have been overcome and the people the world over think that the empire
is about to collapse, but the fact is that within a few years the
tables will be turned and the vanquished will again become victorious.
</p>
<p>
This introductory theme contains the great truth that man is
accustomed to seeing only what is apparent and superficial. That which
is behind the apparent and superficial he does not know. When in the
petty matters of life, this habit to see only the apparent and
superficial can lead man to misunderstandings and miscalculations, and
when he is liable to make wrong estimates only due to lack of
knowledge about "what will happen tomorrow", how stupendous will be
his error if he risks his whole life-activity by placing reliance
only upon what is visible and apparent with respect to his worldly
life as a whole. 
</p>
<p.
Then, from the question of the conflict between
Byzantium and Iran the direction of the discourse turns to the theme
of the Hereafter, and as far as verse 27, man has been made to
understand in different ways that the Hereafter is possible as well as
rational and necessary; then for the sake of keeping the system of his
life also stable and balanced it is absolutely necessary that he
should plan and order his present life on the faith in the Hereafter;
otherwise he will commit the same error as has always been the result
of placing one's reliance only upon the apparent and the visible. 
</p>
<p>
In
this connection, the Signs of the universe which have been presented
as evidence to prove the doctrine of the Hereafter arc precisely the
same which support the doctrine of <em>Tauhid</em>. Therefore from verse 28
onward, the discourse turns to the affirmation of <em>Tauhid</em> and the
refutation of <em>shirk</em>, and it is stressed that the natural way of life
for man is none else but to serve One God exclusively. <em>Shirk</em> is opposed
to the nature of the universe as to the nature of man. Therefore,
whenever man has adopted this deviation, chaos has resulted. Again
here, an allusion has been made to the great chaos that had gripped
the world on account of the war between the two major powers of the
time, and it has been indicated that this chaos too, is the result of
<em>shirk</em>, and all the nations who were ever involved in mischief and
chaos in the history of mankind were also <em>mushriks</em>. 
</p>
<p>
In conclusion, a
parable has been presented to make the people understand that just as
dead earth comes to life, all of a sudden, by a shower of rain sent by
God and swells with vegetation and plant life, so is the case with the
dead humanity. When God sends a shower of His mercy in the form of
Revelation and Prophethood, it also gives a new life to mankind and
causes it to grow and develop and flourish. Therefore: "If you take
full advantage of this opportunity, the barren land of Arabia will
bloom by Allah's mercy and the whole advantage will be your. But if
you do not take advantage of it, you will harm only your selves. Then
no regret will avail and no opportunity will be provided to make
amends."
</p>

